


Here Comes Judgement Day

by wraithwitch



Series: Constellations [2]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Drunk Witches, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Hurt Crowley (Good Omens), Hurt/Comfort, I promise it works out okay in the end, Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), Ineffable Idiots (Good Omens), M/M, Queen lyrics, Self-Harm, The Bentley is awesome, Trigger warnings for suicide, this is dark
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-07
Updated: 2019-07-07
Packaged: 2020-06-23 22:46:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,095
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19711033
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wraithwitch/pseuds/wraithwitch
Summary: Crowley must discorporate if he is to keep Aziraphale from Heaven's wrath...





	Here Comes Judgement Day

And in the end all of this was just another way to punish himself, although these days he scarcely knows what he’s punishing himself for. All he knows is he’s tired and he’d like to stop now - if he could remember how.

* * *

Crowley’s Will is phenomenal, but he has spent six millennia making sure he doesn’t discorporate. Trying to kill himself rather goes against the grain.

 _“Fuck,”_ he swears quietly, getting a better grip on the knife.

* * *

There’s a hand that rests on his shoulder and he shudders, not from the pain but because this is private; he’ll par his wrist to the bone but he doesn’t want anyone to see it. Crowley raises his chin to look at Aziraphale, he’s practically vibrating with adrenaline and misery because of course out of all Creation it had to be his angel.

Aziraphale’s eyebrows fold in concern. “M-my dear?” There’s something flint-knapped to Crowley’s stillness: everything about him is mono-edge-sharp but worryingly brittle. “Please my dear, are you…”

“They can’t have you.” His voice is like it was at the airfield, hollow but determined.

“Who?”

“Heaven!” he spits.

“My dear, I don’t think that they want me…”

“They can’t have you!” he reiterates in that voice, the one like burning metal. There’s something incandescent about him: he’s blazing some fundamental part of himself and cavorting round the pyre.

“Crowley, what is this about?”

Crowley has always hidden, always obfuscated his eyes and his feelings and he does so now because he’s lost rather a lot of blood and his mind is not up to their usual banter - or any banter, really.

“What - what on Earth is _this?”_ Aziraphale has found the blade. It wasn’t exactly hidden, had in fact been dropped on the floor and kicked hastily under the desk.

Crowley is sagging forward now. He’s often joked Aziraphale would be the death of him, he just hadn’t expected it to be so literal. Love and Sacrifice… He seems to recall She always said they went hand in hand. He’d ask the Angel but he can’t cope with the word ‘Ineffable’ right now. In fact he’s not sure he can cope with words period: his mind is fuzzy and his senses turning to static. It’s just as well he cannot see Aziraphale’s expression, he thinks, otherwise it would probably kill him. (Haha.) There is the soft but significant sound of a single, heavy, drop of blood as it hits the floor.

The Angel glares at the stained blade and then at Crowley as if trying to come up with a single sane or logical reason why it should be there. So far all he’s managed to come up with is ‘child sacrifice’ which is neither sane nor sensible and - most significantly - just isn’t Crowley. “What have you done? And why is there a dish of…” He had meant to ask why a large early Victorian cut-crystal bowl was filled with wine-punch, when he catches the scent of it and realises what it truly is.

The Demon gives a queasy smile of satisfaction and falls out of his chair and into unconsciousness, thudding bonelessly to the floor.

The Angel’s eyes go wide but he pushes past the shock and moves, grappling with Crowley and his jacket to seek out where he’s hurt. It isn’t difficult to discern. The left sleeve of his jacket clings wetly to his arm and once it’s removed its lining gleams crimson. Crowley’s left arm looks like a joint of meat carved for a Sunday roast. Healing a Demon by Angellic means is A) excruciating, B) insanity inducing, C) categorized as a War Crime, and D) gets one noticed by Our Lady of Bedlam. Azirapjale knows all this because he’s done it once and is in no hurry to do it again.

But, Demons are not the only ones capable of manipulating time: if the hurt is small enough and the Angel swift enough, a minor Miracle may be performed to rewind the timeline of the damage done. It’s an imperfect form of healing as it does nothing to cancel out any infection caught or any blood loss incurred. It’s more like the Celestial version of a hot poker only without the agony or the scent of burning flesh.

Aziraphale isn’t certain whether to blame the slipshod nature of the Miracle, Crowley’s stubbornness or the fact that he’s on the edge of Too Late for the fact the wounds close so sluggishly.

Crowley’s eyes flicker, the basic machinery of his corporation coming back online. Many people underestimate Crowley because they only take into account his Willpower (which is significant) and so believe they have the measure of him. What they fail to take into account is the vast reservoir of Desperation and Bastard Spite that lies behind that Willpower. The Demon’s eyes blink, achieving greater focus, then the blade is summoned to his hand again. Precisely two point five seconds later Aziraphale has hold of the Demon’s wrist and is fighting tooth and nail to keep the blade from Crowley’s throat.

Crowley struggles and seethes: misery bought to a boiling point so acute it’s almost hatred. He can’t bring the blade to his neck with the Angel hauling on his wrist like that; so he does the only other thing he can think to do. He encourages the freshly closed wounds to re-open. _This is my sodding corporation and if I carve holes in it they can bastard well stay there until I say!_ That’s all it takes: the wounds spring back open like a choir of red, screaming mouths, and Crowley suppresses a cry of his own. He makes a strangled noise as his vision whites out with the shock of it.

Aziraphale’s wings manifest, a startled defensive action as Crowley goes limp and the Angel realises there is fresh blood soaking into his suit, Crowley’s waistcoat, and the floor. The Angel calls the Demon something very uncomplimentary in Enochian and sets to grimly reversing the passage of time for the second time in as many minutes. Three of the wounds continue to drip mutinously: Aziraphale has obviously reached the limit of what time can achieve. Still, there’s such a thing as a First Aid box; mundane, yes, but good enough now to be effective. He grabs Crowley’s jacket and wraps that tightly around the remaining wounds to staunch them.

Crowley’s face looks very pale against the black of his clothes and the congealing red he’s liberally covered in.

“Oh my dear,” he murmurs. In six millennia Crowley’s never done anything that’s scared him. This, on the other hand, is utterly terrifying. He draws the Demon up into his arms, no longer caring where the blood stains; his wings curl round protectively, a pristine arc of white shielding them both from the World as he holds the Demon tighter and wonders what on Earth could have been the root of all this trouble.

* * *

The thing about Heaven is that it doesn’t like to lose. It doesn’t believe it’s meant to for a start, and whilst no one in their right mind would suggest Heaven is vindictive, it does have a certain single-mindedness when it feels it hasn’t achieved the high-score win it so richly deserves.

Hell is good at exerting physical pressure: Hell’s knowledge of where joints and nerve clusters are has always been eons ahead of Humanity’s crude exploration and dissection of base anatomy. Heaven is less interested in the actual infliction of pain and more in the end result. Heaven knows that everything is built with a little self-destruct button deep inside it, hardwired into its DNA. Amid those double-helix spirals, if one can find the exact spot to apply pressure, then Endtimes.exe will run, and anything can be made to go ‘kaboom’.

A Demon - especially one as sophisticated as Crowley - is a challenge. But Gabriel works at it diligently, and at last hits upon an elegant solution.

* * *

On the sixth ring, Crowley opens the door of his Mayfair flat at 9am on a Monday morning that ought to be no different from any other Monday morning: but it is, because Gabriel is standing in the outer hallway.

Crowley’s lip curls in derision; the Archangel doesn’t notice however as he’s looking down at Crowley’s snakeskin boots, beneath which is an assortment of circulars, flyers, free news papers and other junk mail detritus.

“What is that?” he points a finger towards the mess like he’s pointing at excrement.

Crowley has spent the last few days at the bookshop and only returned very late last night so hasn’t had a chance to clean up. He shrugs. “Homing instinct. They get cocky if I’m away for a bit.” Crowley had invented cold-calling and mass marketing letter drops; as a result the dratted things seemed to have an urge to return to the nest. “What the Hell do you want?”

Plastering a bright, white, corporate grade smile on his face, Gabriel tells him.

“You _what?”_

“I’m sure you heard me,” Gabriel encourages. “We’ll give you three days to comply.”

It’s not the first time in his exceptionally long life that Crowley’s been rendered speechless, but it is the first time he’s been rendered mute by fury. Gabriel is unspeakably punch-able: the desire the Demon feels to bust open his knuckles on the Archangel’s smug face is primal.

“If you haven’t complied in three days…” He waves his hands, palms up. “Well. You know the alternative. We’re not the bad guys here; we’re giving you a chance for sacrifice. Redemption. Heaven’s big on Redemption. I mean, you’re still Hell-spawn,” he gives a little laugh, “but look at it as having a chance to be a better class of Hell-spawn. Whaddya say?”

Crowley produces what he hopes is a supremely withering look from behind his sunglasses. “Why don’t you do yourself a favour - Gabe? Why don’t you eat a Renault 4 with salami in your ears and _fuck off_ while you’re doing it?”

Gabriel looks haughty and slightly confused. He twitches a sneer, adjusts the immaculate line of his cashmere coat, and leaves.

Crowley pushes the door closed with a mix of despair and heavy relief. Gabriel’s gone, and he is grateful, but there are bigger problems heading his way. He leans back against the nearest wall and slowly slides down it. “Right…” he says quietly. “Didn’t see that coming.” He sounds dazed. He stays sitting on the floor with the junk mail for some minutes, and had there been anyone observing him they wouldn’t have been able to say what he was thinking other than that he didn’t seem very happy about it.

Eventually he gives a sniff and scuffs the back of his hand under his nose before sitting up straighter. “It’s only the End of the World again,” he says with resolute cheer.

In one sense he is correct: but this time it is only the End of the World for one Anthony J Crowley.

* * *

Gabriel had specifically said discorporation, which meant Hell (or likely Hastur, that bastard) wanted his soul still alive and kicking. He considers, briefly, out of spite, Obliterating himself with Holy Water.

_How would they like that, eh?_

But he doesn’t much like the thought because whilst he’ll never admit it, the World’s made Crowley an optimist. He doesn’t have it in him to destroy himself utterly because even if he’s tortured in Hell for millennia, he’ll still believe, deep down, that given enough time he’ll be able to wriggle out of it and get back to Earth.

(Perhaps it is better to say that he’s not an optimist, but a Crowleyist. He doesn’t inherently believe things will turn out well in the end, but he certainly believes in his own ability to give them a kick in that direction.)

So, discorporation then. How should he do it? Car crash? That thought brings him out in a cold sweat. Sweet Satan no, the Bentley’d suffered enough. Alright then - there were other ways. What was that ditty - the Dorothy Parker one?

 _Razors pain you;_  
_Rivers are damp;_  
_Acids stain you;_  
_And drugs cause cramp._  
_Guns aren’t lawful;_  
_Nooses give;_  
_Gas smells awful;_  
_You might as well live._

Pity that last one wasn’t an option. What else was there? Toaster in the bath? He’d be cooked to soup - that was rather… undignified. Something sharp then. He remembers Petronius and his feast - a final fuck-you to Nero…

Yes. A nod to the Classics. That would do.

* * *

Crowley’s eyes open with reluctance, but once he registers light a good deal more comes back to him. He tries to sit up rather faster than he ought: his brain broadcasts static in retaliation, and the vibrancy of the discomfort makes him fall back, supine. He counts to no number in particular and then tries again, more cautiously this time. He’s confused as to why it still doesn’t seem to be working, but his senses are firing up at last so maybe they’ll tell him? Ah. There’s - there’s something…

His right wrist is handcuffed to his bed.

He scowls at it and gives it a half-hearted and experimental rattle. _“Not how I imagined this scenario,”_ he mutters, wishing he’d never bothered to invent irony.

He leans up on one elbow so he can peer awkwardly over the edge of the bed. The bed has been moved away from the wall and is the centre of a new design piece that stretches across the polished mahogany floor around it: an occult circle that acts as a barrier, temporarily separating a Demon from the majority of his powers.

He squints at it. “Is - is that…?” (It is.) “You used my blood.” There has been much speculation amongst serious occultists as to whether it’s possible to scribe a circle in Demonic blood and exactly how that will affect the potency of said circle. (Answer: ‘if you can get it, yes’, and, ‘a lot’.)

“You bastard - you insufferable idiot _bookish_ bastard!” he growls, too frustrated to be as impressed as he ought. Then, “ _How long have I been out?”_ he asks suddenly, the anger falling from his voice having been kicked out by not a single note but a whole symphony of panic. _“Aziraphale?_ Aziraphale you sod - how long?” he bellows, unsure if the Angel’s even in the flat. “How long have I been out? _Angel?!”_

A slightly flustered Angel hurries in to the bedroom carrying a just-boiled kettle. “I’m here, no need to shout. You’ll have the constables round!”

Crowley winces, but he supposes he should be grateful the Angel doesn’t say ‘Peelers’ or ‘the Watch’. He flings himself in a semi-upright slump against the pillows and the headboard; something in his heart is still very angry and insistent he continue to shout, but the rest of him is too tired to pay it much mind. He stares at Aziraphale instead. “Angel,” he says, and the control it takes is like forcing diamonds through ground teeth. “How long have I been here?"

“Since I came by yesterday afternoon? Just shy of a day, my dear.”

Crowley lets out a shuddering sigh over a profanity or two and manages to look both relieved and nauseous. “Then there’s still time,” he mutters. He gives the handcuff a withering sideways look. When it refuses to unlock, he twists his thumb and first two knuckles somehow, and yanks his hand out of the cuff. Immediately he tries to put them back into joint with a shake and a glare - habit - before remembering he’s still in a blasted Ward. He swears, grimaces, and forcibly clicks the bones back in place the old-fashioned way.

“You - you - how did you do that?”

“Ssnake,” he says, griseous but still insisting on a wide and wicked grin.

Aziraphale's wings unfold with the look of an Angel who hasn’t done much Smiting in his life but is certain that it’s just like riding a velocipede and once learnt is not easily forgotten. “Crowley, my dear…”

Crowley’s temper snaps. “For the love of Creation!” It’s an angry wail. “You fucking stupid Principality - why won’t you let me save your life?!” His voice is broken now as the tears start to fall; he tips his head back and lets it thud against the headboard: his shoulders shake with the effort to stop tears that refuse to heed his Will.

“My dear!” the Angel sounds anguished. “W-what on Earth are you talking about?” He means to stay outside the circle: he bears a little over two and slightly less than three seconds before pouring the scalding water that he’d meant for tea over a patch of the Ward, breaking its outermost circumference and smudging several key sigils back into small red puddles. He doesn’t know it, but he looks like an unlikely version of Temperance from the tarot deck. That illusion breaks as he drops the kettle, folds away his wings, and hurries to perch on the bed beside Crowley.

He doesn’t know how the Demon will react - with violence perhaps - but he simply cannot hold back and refuse to offer comfort. It’s not in his nature. He draws Crowley towards him; the Demon resists like a sack of grain: an obstinate weight that topples heavily against him just when he’d given up any hope of ever shifting it. But sacks of grain don’t breathe - and certainly not like that - hitched to heartbreak.

Aziraphale runs his hand down Crowley’s spine, an intuitive gesture seeking to instill calm. He does it a second time and then several times more, uncertain whether it is the hint of vertebrae or serpent’s scales he can feel under his fingertips. He wishes to add words - reassurances - to mirror the motion, but realises he has none to give as he has no idea of the tribulation Crowley is suffering under. This is Crowley, not Elizabethan Theatre - _‘Buck up Hamlet!’_ will not do. So he soothes as quietly as he can, and waits.

The Demon’s tears dry by degrees and his breathing calms. Eventually he gives a little laugh balanced carefully between embarrassment and contrition. “Don’t worry about me. ‘M fine now. I think someone spiked my drink.” His tone is convincing, but -

“At the Savoy?”

 _Shit._ He’d forgotten that was where they’d dined together before Gabriel had paid his visit. Not to mention they’d retired to the bookshop for a bit before Crowley had finally reluctantly left for his flat at 4am. His amazing story of wild parties and hedonism is not looking so ingenious right now… “At - at the - no not at the - the - ‘course not the Savoy. I went to a party. After.” It sounds poor even to him.

“A party. Hm,” Aziraphale says neutrally. “Was it a particular drug?”

Crowley flinches because that’s a question he hadn’t expected. “Er - wh’t’?” He’d normally be quicker off the mark, but he’d recently endured an amount of trauma (recalling the bloody Chicken Song for a start) and a significant amount of blood loss. His Corporeal Form is doing its best just to keep his vital signs ticking along without major incident.

“I was rather under the impression that drugs were supposed to be pleasurable, either offering tranquillity or excitement. It would be a poor drug that invoked self-destruction. No return customer base for a start…”

There was that ruthless streak again, and again he couldn’t appreciate it.

“I’m - really - I’m fine…”

Aziraphale grabs his left hand and turns his wrist to the light. Due to the battle back and forth of Temporal Miracle and Will, Crowley has something none since the Fall possess: new scars. Also three meticulously neat white gauze dressings with the wounds sutured closed beneath them. “This is _not_ fine.”

The Demon tries to say something but ends up making a vague noise as he reclaims his wrist.

“Crowley!” The Angel turns lambent eyes upon him; they bleed his emotions too freely as they always have.

The Demon tries to curl into a loop that gets smaller and smaller and vanishes entirely but it’s hard to be an Ouroboros whilst in Human form.

Aziraphale clasps at him, pulling him close. “My dear you are not fine. It’s obvious to me that something has happened, and I’d appreciate it greatly if you’d tell me what. I’m certain we can fix it.”

Crowley’s head is nestled on the Angel’s shoulder against the wide lapel of his coat. For a moment he relaxes; it’s familiar and so comfortable. He would, he thinks, like to sleep here, curl into his angel’s arms and… “No…” He hasn’t time to sleep and needs to finish what he started.

He sits up and hides his face in his hands, fingers pressing at his eyelids and making strange colours dance across the darkness of his vision. He tries to take several steadying breaths. He can’t tell the Angel, he can’t he can’t he can’t… But the tragedy of it all is that Crowley’s never been able to refuse Aziraphale anything.

“Gabriel came to see me,” he says hollowly, his voice partly muffled by his hands.

“What did he want?” The Angel sounds prickly and a little scared.

Crowley lets out a shuddering sigh. “To inform me of Heaven’s new dictate. Or Hell’s. ‘Spose it doesn’t matter who’s behind it,” he acknowledges tiredly. “They… they want me to discorporate. Hell has something inventive planned no doubt. Hastur’s probably stirring up trouble again…” Since Hastur’s last attempt at trouble had nearly cost Crowley his wings and his Sanity, this speculation was not a happy one.

“You’ve never been a very obedient Demon, I fail to see why you should start now!” Aziraphale sounds resolute. “If they send someone for you, I - I could Smite them. It’s what Angels are supposed to do, after all,” he adds. He realises the Demon is shaking. “Crowley?”

His laughter is breathless and verging on hysterics. He shudders to a stop, takes his hands away from his face, wiping his palms against his eyes and the back of his thumb under his nose with a sniff. Aziraphale is staring at him and he wants to meet his gaze but he can’t. “That’s not going to work, angel,” he says quietly.

“Oh - balderdash! We could make it work. _Together.”_

There is a note in his voice that is joyous and pleading and desperate all at once and it makes Crowley’s sternum ache. “No…”

“We could leave! As you suggested before - do you recall? See the stars. It’s a big universe…”

Crowley can’t stand to have his words parroted back at him, not now, not like this. _“No…”_

“We could…”

“No no no no no no NO!” He tries to swallow his own rage - it’s all so fucking unfair. “I have to do what they say,” he manages in a significantly calmer voice. “I have to discorporate. I’ve got until Thursday.”

Aziraphale looks hurt. “This isn’t like you, Crowley. You’re inventive. You’re - you’re wily! And rebellious - you never do what anyone says,” he adds in a confused voice that isn’t sure whether to list this as a virtue or a vice.

The Demon hangs his head, defeat in the curve of his shoulders and spine. He’s so damn tired. “They’ve got leverage, haven’t they? Found my weak spot.”

“And where would that be exactly?” the Angel asks archly before answering his own question - “Oh! The Bentley?” he says without thinking.

Crowley winces as his heart does something unpleasant that hearts are not designed to do because that _hurt_. “You, angel,” he hisses. “It’s _you._ If I don’t discorportate _they come after you.”_ Crowley collapses on his side back onto the bed, curling his knees towards his chest, trying to make himself small because all of Creation felt far too heavy right now. “Go away, angel,” he begs. “Leave me the fuck alone.”

Aziraphale’s mouth opens and closes several times before he finds the right words. “I - I most certainly will not! How dare they exploit our - our relationship in such a manner!” It had been on the tip of his tongue to say ‘love’ - which was correct - but their admissions on that topic were still very new and they both found it easier to skirt the issues of feelings and instead move on to more demonstrative and simple markers of affection. They’d surreptitiously hold hands, or sit with legs or knees brushing, or exchange a careless kiss on the cheek in thanks or parting, or a coy and stolen kiss on the lips that left them both flush-cheeked and breathless.

Crowley makes a small noise of pain and tries to coil tighter. An eternity of Hastur flaying his skin from his bones couldn’t be worse than this.

“Crowley,” he says gently, “I’ll answer to Heaven - it’s a simple matter. It’s not your place to shoulder that burden - I’ll…"

“They won’t let you back,” his voice is tattered and hopeless. “And I don’t know what Heavenly punishment is like but I doubt it’ll be a strongly worded memo."

“Well,” Aziraphale says gamely, and stops. A fragment of Eliot’s _The Wasteland_ comes unbidden to mind.

_My friend, blood shaking my heart The awful daring of a moment’s surrender Which an age of prudence can never retract By this, and this only, we have existed._

He remembers when he’d first admitted his feelings for Crowley: the Demon had been spectacularly drunk in a Fleet Street pub, licking his wounded pride after they’d argued. He’d demanded to know why Aziraphale hadn’t recognized the love that had been laid at his feet for so long. He had of course, but it had been so vast, so deep and desperate in its nature he had assumed it was for the World: Crowley’s third and final attempt at finding a home he didn’t despise. There’s not much to be said in the face of that strength of feeling.

He sighs. “I imagine they’ll send someone else down - one of the other Principalities. You won’t be entirely alone.”

The Demon shudders at the thought. At the End of the World when the bookshop had burnt, he’d thought he’d lost Aziraphale for a solid six hours and the feeling had been unbearable. He doesn’t want that for the rest of Eternity - he’d rather tongs and knives and burning coals. A sob wracks through his chest because he’s a Demon who fell in love with an Angel long ago in Eden - and how did he ever expect _that_ to turn out well? Idiot _idiot_ serpent. “Fuck the other Principalities.” His eyes are itching to shed salt and he can’t - he can’t - “Go away, Aziraphale,” he mutters. “Let me get on with it.” He directs what little Will he has left at one of the longer scars on his arm. Slowly, like a smile, the flesh begins to part and spill red.

“No!” Aziraphale pulls out his pocket square and presses it against the wound, his hand tight enough to bruise, his knuckles white.

Crowley would like to be furious, but he can’t summon the energy. He hasn’t felt this small and hopeless since he first pitched up in a pool of sulphur. He tries to pull his arm away, but unless he dislocates his wrist and every bone in his hand there is no way he’s getting out of the Angel’s grasp.

“You - you infuriating thing! How - how _dare_ you?” Aziraphale manages. “With your wiles and your temptation and your friendship and - and - Crowley, my dearest, please don’t do this to me. I understand it’s terribly selfish to ask… I think, perhaps,” he gives a sad smile, “it’s because Angel’s are Beings of Love. We radiate Love to all Creation. If we each didn’t have one vice, one single point of selfishness - a love all of our own to keep us whole - I don’t believe we could exist as we do. We would not be individuals, but a formless force of beneficence… I had always thought,” he continues quietly, “that my love was for food, but then I can be a little slow on the uptake at times.” He brushes strands of the Demon’s hair gently away from his forehead, a tender and - in its way - a possessive action. “It’s you, my dear. You’re my centre: my one point of selfishness. The thing in all Creation I want for myself.”

The Demon convulses, trying not to sob, trying to curl smaller and tighter, trying to disappear because after six fucking millennia and an Apocalypse, with a day and a half left on his tab, the Angel is telling him this _now?_ Yeah, okay, Aziraphale had said he loved him back in June, but Crowley hadn’t entirely believed it. Bless it, Angels are so filled with the love of the Almighty - what’s the adoration of one lowly Demon to that? But he’d been happy enough to accept it, more than happy - ecstatic. Whatever love the Angel showed him was another moment spent basking in the sunlight he gave off that felt like Eden.

What did a Demon’s love feel like anyway? Nothing as glorious as sunlight, that’s for certain. No. Crowley would discorporate and pay the tithe to Hell or Heaven - or the bloody Piper - whoever it was who needed paying. _I’d do anything for you and always have. You don’t notice - why would you?_ And Aziraphale would mourn for a time and eventually move on. He realises belatedly that he is crying and his angel is speaking again.

“Crowley, my dear, I’m not certain how to say such a thing, so you must be patient with me… But there is something extremely important I need you to understand.” A breath. “I cannot possibly allow you to discorporate because of threats to my person. I - I simply couldn’t bear it…” Another breath. “I love you. I suppose it makes me a rather poor Angel - falling for a Demon’s wiles,” he teases weakly. “And I can only apologize for the length of time it took me to realize that you are _everything_ to me,” he admits quietly, his eyes shining with tears. “But the thing about Angels my dear, is that we protect what we love - it’s, it’s what we were made for.”

Aziraphale makes a gesture, left-handed and a touch awkward, and the bloody handkerchief beneath his grip becomes a clean gauze over a row of sutures on the Demon’s wrist. He lays his hand on Crowley’s shoulder and then slowly but deliberately leans over to place a kiss across his cheekbone.

Crowley is instantly still - almost rigid - and his eyes have opened, gold and fully serpentine. The Angel doesn’t move away, instead he seems to be trying to fold himself around Crowley - protective, yes, but there’s something else there too - a desire like a spark seeking to ground itself. Another kiss, this time on Crowley’s neck just beneath his jaw. He shivers and forgets how to breathe. The more human side of his personality is panicking because one cannot hang out with humans for thousands of years without picking up a few undesirable traits: Crowley had long since caught anxiety like a mental STD there was no mercury cure for.

“An - az - aa…” Language is a concept that no longer works. “W-w’t you doin’?” he manages.

“This,” the Angel says placing another kiss. And another. And another…

* * *

It’s Wednesday morning and a hazy sun is lighting up the east swell of the Thames and the glass facades of the many high-rise buildings within the City of London. Crowley stirs and his limbs encounter other limbs. He flinches backwards like a startled feline but is stopped by a hand that lands on his chest, moves to his shoulder, and seeks to pull him back into drowsiness and comfort.

A rogue fear enters his head - “What - what time is it - the - the time?"

“We have time enough my dear…”

Crowley knows he shouldn’t allow himself to be tidied away beneath the duvet like that - and he would say so - but the only word drawn from his throat is “Feathers…?”

“Yes my dear,” Aziraphale confirms, drawing his wings up and over - in a perfect halo - above a Demon he should not love but does with all of his heart.

“I - I have to - angel - I…”

“Tomorrow,” he soothes. “You’re tired.”

He is. He doesn’t like it but his eyes are slipping closed again and his limbs are too heavy.

Aziraphale doesn’t sleep: he lies upon a bed and holds a Demon in his arms. His wings - a brilliance of white feathers - curl about them both, and the left one specifically curls protectively around the Demon in his keeping.

* * *

It’s evening when Crowley next wakes. Physically he’s feeling better, but mentally there’s a little voice screaming itself hoarse at the back of his skull like the worlds worst hangover waiting to happen. “Nghh?” He’s opened his eyes and all he can see are feathers: gorgeous snow white feathers whose arrangement is more fluffy than sleek. _(It’s a beautiful wing,_ he thinks faintly, _but definitely in need of grooming...)_ “Angel?” he hazards.

The wing retracts, revealing Aziraphale lying beside him on his bed in his Mayfair flat. His eyes widen, and Hope - that traitorous bitch - unfurls in his heart before burning as he remembers everything.

A hand is immediately on his shoulder. “Please don’t be rash, my dear,” the Angel councils. “We have plans to make."

“I’ve got a plan,” he says mulishly.

“Not a good one,” Aziraphale counters.

“I - I - wha - what the fuck am I meant to do?” he asks wretchedly. “I have to discorporate and I’ve got a Thursday 9am deadline. And you can say what the Hell you like, but I am not existing without you, angel.” He’d expected an argument, but instead Aziraphale just strokes his shoulder ruminatively.

“Discorporate - that was the specific word Gabriel used?”

“Yeah?”

“Then all we need to do is find a way for you to discorporate that doesn’t send you back to Hell.”

Crowley snorts and is about to say something sarcastic, but there’s an itch of an idea at the back of his skull that stops him. Something to do with Hastur. Why was he thinking of that wanker in a trench coat? Hastur, Hastur, Hastur… what the Hell? … The answer machine. The tape. Maybe even the Bentley…

Crowley goes very still and forgets to breathe for a significant amount of time that would concern any medical professional.

“My dear?”

“If - if I discorporated… could you get Heaven to sign off on it? Hell too. Paperwork. Like a chit or something - a contract - a receipt - that’s it. A receipt acknowledging I’d done what they’d asked and saying now they couldn’t touch you…?”

“Michael is very keen on paperwork and keeping everything in order,” Aziraphale admits. “I’m certain I could ask for a receipt. But I don’t see how that helps us.”

“I - I think I have a plan.” He smiles queasily at the Angel. “One that doesn’t involve a paring knife.”

“Tell me,” he implores.

Crowley does.

The Angel’s face does something complex as a lot of emotions flicker across it in swift succession. He isn’t certain which part of Crowley’s plan to address first as it all seems equally ludicrous. “Are - are you sure that’s - that’s ‘a thing’?"

Crowley’s mouth quirks. “I haven’t done a scientific study on it if that’s what you mean.”

“But - but supposing it is - how on Earth are you meant to come back?”

He swallows because he doesn’t know and he’s terrified, but - “The Bentley will remember,” he says with every ounce of certainty, Willpower, Spite and Desperation he has in his soul. “’S my car. Had it from new. Love that car.”

“My dear,” Aziraphale murmurs unhappily, pulling the Demon tightly into his embrace. He’s allowed Heaven’s dogma to obscure his judgment for far too long. Six millennia wasted: six millennia of struggling to admit there was even a friendship between them. But perhaps it was for the best: before the Apocalypse That Wasn’t, Heaven and Hell would have torn them to pieces for such fraternization. Even now, when supposedly they are being left to their own devices, both sides are seeking to meddle or destroy them for their own gain.

As it is they have scarcely had four months together. Four tentative months to balance against six thousand years? It isn’t just unfair, it’s monstrously unjust. Aziraphale wonders what he’ll do if Crowley’s plan fails and the Demon doesn’t return. Will he become an incandescent being of abstract Love and seek oblivion that way? Will he revert to Memitim, filled with nothing but the Almighty’s living Wrath? Or might he dare to orchestrate his own Fall and find his way back to Crowley…? He voices none of his churning thoughts. Instead, “It’s a terrible risk,” is all he says.

Crowley coils tighter against his angel. “Worth it,” he says, because it has to be.

* * *

Anyone walking down Great Windmill Street at 6 am on Thursday morning would have seen a badly parked vintage 1933 Bentley in pristine condition - an unusual sight for London.

But more unusual is the slender young man sitting on the kerbstone beside it, his boots in the gutter, his hand on the wheel arch and his forehead leaning against the immaculate black paintwork. His eyes are closed and beneath the chaos of his red hair, he looks very pale and very scared.

“You’re a good car,” he says softly. “The best... Don’t forget me,” he pleads.

* * *

He shakes his hands, flicking his fingers out, trying to psych himself up. “Alright,” he says. _If you’ve got to go,_ he thinks grimly, _go with style._

He pulls out his iPhone and dials the number to his flat.

* * *

Aziraphale removes the tape from the answer machine with the care and reverence that he reserves for very old books with damaged spines. He places it within an empty case whose label promises ninety minutes of audio play, and then he leaves the flat.

* * *

The Bentley’s door is opened - her engine sparks immediately - but it’s not her Demon.

(The Bentley has, since Armageddon, experimented with its concept of self and has decided, tentatively - that it is a She.)

It’s the Angel - all fussy feathers and old books. She likes the Angel for Crowley’s sake. The Angel’s scared of her and the Bentley doesn’t know why but is mildly offended all the same. The Bentley is a car after all, and for all that Crowley’s personality has rubbed off on ~~it~~ her, she doesn’t understand that the Angel is terrified not of _her_ but of Crowley’s habit of driving through central London in excess of 100mph.

The Angel places a cassette tape in the driver’s foot-well, pushing it under the front seat. He then bites his lip and looks as if there are a great many things he wishes to say but isn’t certain how. “You - you will look after him,” the Angel says at last, part plea, part threat.

 _“But it's been no bed of roses_  
_No pleasure cruise_  
_I consider it a challenge before the whole human race_  
_And I ain't gonna lose,”_ sings the Bentley softly.

“Quite,” the Angel murmurs.

* * *

Aziraphale hasn’t opened the bookshop because he is expecting them. They arrive at nine: two figures, one broad-shouldered and dressed in dove-grey cashmere, the other small and surly and dressed in black. The shop is filled with the scent of clouds and brimstone.

There is an awkward moment as both Gabriel and Beelzebub look at the bookshop, each other, and the Angel.

“Where izz he?”

“Discorporated,” the Angel says bitterly. “Can’t you feel it?”

Heaven and Hell exchange another look. They can feel it - or more precisely, they can’t feel Crowley.

“He - your guys have him, right?”

Beelzibub does not like to look incompetent in front of Gabriel. “Obviouzzzzly.”

“The paperwork then, if you please.”

Gabriel’s lilac eyes regard Aziraphale as most would regard a slug. “Paper work?”

“As I understand it, Crowley was to discorporate. Failure to do so within the allotted time would sacrifice me to Heaven’s wrath…”

“Pfft - sacrifice? Don’t be so dramatic, Aziraphale!”

“And you,” he points at Beelzebub recklessly, “You wanted him back in Hell. So there must have been an agreement. Paperwork.” He holds out an open palm that is expectant and manages not to shake. “I’m certain there’s something to sign between the two of you at least. It was a deal: a contract, a binding agreement. I wish to have a writ made up stating that the Demon Crowley fulfilled his part of the agreement. Unless of course Heaven breaks deals made in good faith and Hell’s contracts are not honoured?” He allows a cold, sharp note to colour the query.

Gabriel and Beelzebub exchange a third discomforted look.

“Dagon, Lord of the Filezzz,” Beelzebub states, “hazz the paperzz in hand.”

“I can wait,” Aziraphale says cheerily as Gabriel glares at him. “Cocoa anyone?”

* * *

_“There's no time for us_  
_There's no place for us_  
_What is this thing that builds our dreams_  
_Yet slips away from us?”_ sings the Bentley.

There’s a sibilance to the lyrics that suggest a serpent’s tongue, but its becoming fainter with every verse.

* * *

The paperwork comes and Aziraphale reads over it with a fervor even the best paid lawyer has yet to display. He suggests one or two corrections which are met immediately: both Heaven and Hell are equally enthusiastic to shake off this Agreement and be done with it.

* * *

_“There's no chance for us_  
_It's all decided for us_  
_This world has only one_  
_Sweet moment set aside for us…”_ The Bentley sings unhappily because her Demon is here but growing further away by the minute. At first she hadn’t sung at all, but that seemed to make matters worse. Crowley was here within her keeping but something was eating away at him and she didn’t know how to stop it.

 _“Who wants to live forever?_  
_Who wants to live forever?_  
_Who - who dares to love forever?”_ the Bentley sings desperately.

* * *

The final paperwork comes through, signed and sealed, sixteen days later.

Aziraphale runs to the Bentley and wrenches open the driver’s door, scrabbling for the cassette he knows to be under the seat.

The Bentley is silent and sings nothing at all.

* * *

Aziraphale puts the cassette back in the answer machine with an odd sort of flourish like a magician who hasn’t tried this trick before. His demeanour deflates a second later as nothing happens. An hour after that it occurs to him to phone the flat. Since his phone is on his desk in the bookshop, he picks up Crowley’s device with reluctance. It is small and sleek and black and almost entirely devoid of buttons. “Hello, this is Aziraphale, would you be so kind as to telephone Crowley’s flat please?”

And because he asked so politely, the phone does.

Aziraphale is momentarily encouraged to think he may be getting the hang of this newfangled technology after all, before the answer machine clicks on.

_“You know what to do - do it with style.”_

“Crowley - it worked. It - it’s safe. You can come back.”

The static makes a noise that the Angel wishes he couldn’t hear.

 _“Who wants to live forever?_  
_Forever is our today_  
_Who waits forever anyway?”_

He slams the phone down face-first onto the desk, which the phone sensibly takes as its cue to disconnect the call. Then remorseful, he rings again. “This isn’t - this isn’t funny Crowley. You can come back. You have to come back.”

There is silence.

“Come back!”

* * *

_“I command your very souls you unbelievers_  
_Bring before me what is mine_  
_The seven seas of rhye…”_

Something of the song sparks a memory: a serpentine tongue stuck between teeth in pissy retaliation.

_Sso long ssuckersss!_

_“Can you hear me you peers and privvy counsellors_  
_I stand before you naked to the eyes_  
_I will destroy any man who dares abuse my trust_  
_I swear that you'll be mine_  
_The seven seas of rhye…”_

Pieces of him are coming back, a torturous and confusing patchwork of memory and identity.

_“You are mine I possess you  
I belong to you forever…”_

There’s an Angel. That’s significant he knows. The image of a sheltering wing echoes like a motif gaining weight with every repetition.

 _“By flash and thunder fire I'll survive_  
_Then I'll defy the laws of nature and come out alive_  
_Then I'll get you...”_

There had been a deal. And he and his angel had - once more - sought to outwit both Heaven and Hell. Something in his soul can’t help but laugh at that.

_“And with a smile -_

\- he does -

_\- I'll take you to the seven seas of rhye!”_

_Yesss,_ he thinks.

The Demon opens his eyes.

* * *

There is, in a way there hadn’t been previously, one lanky Demon sprawled upon the floor of the study of the Mayfair flat.

“Crowley!” the Angel utters with delight before that happiness falters. “Crowley?”

“I think I’m going slightly mad,” he manages before passing out.

* * *

_"It’s a kind of magic…"_

He twitches half awake, uncertain where he is and fearful of where he might be. “Feathers…” he mumbles. The arc of feathers move and he has the blurred impression of a face that is dear to him with mussed blond curls. “’Ziraphale?”

“Yes my dear?” he asks hopefully, but the Demon’s eyes have closed again and he receives no answer.

* * *

Crowley is not sure where he is. He does however have the vaguest sensation that he is Crowley, which is a good place to start.

_“Oh the machine of a dream, such a clean machine  
With the pistons a pumpin', and the hubcaps all gleam…"_

The words play at the back of his head. He probably should be irritated by that, but he isn’t. “My car…?”

“Yes - yes my dear,” he soothes. “I do believe it looked after you.”

There is no metric to measure the amount of willpower it takes to return from being rendered into Queen lyrics. Suffice to say, Hastur would never have managed it nor possessed the imagination to even think he could. That Crowley had pulled it off was in part due to the Bentley's care, that and his reserves of desperation and spite. Even so, it had been exhausting.

His eyes stutter to stay open longer but cannot, and he slips back into darkness once more.

* * *

_“So she made tracks saying this is the end, now…”_

(I love you.)

_“Cars don't talk back they're just four wheeled friends now…”_

(I love you.)

_“When I'm holding your wheel  
All I hear is your gear…”_

(You’re mine. I’m yours. I love you.)

_“When I'm cruisin' in overdrive  
Don't have to listen to no run of the mill talk jive...”_

(I love you. Come back to me. Come back to him. Just come back. Come back… Come back…) longs the Bentley.

* * *

Crowley is in bed, wearing black silk pyjamas the left sleeve of which has been rolled up for some reason. He looks hazily at his own arm, criss-crossed with long silver-white scars and four clean patches of gauze.

 _That’s a thing,_ he thinks.

A hand closes gently over his wrist and pulls it across his chest to the right.

“Ah - a - ‘Ziraphale?”

“Yes my dear,” he says. “We have our writ. We’re safe. They can’t touch us now. You can come back. _I love you._ Please come back to me…”

* * *

The Angel has been fretting - he is, he discovers, very good at it. He’s been fretting like a champion ever since the Demon got out of bed, changed into his customary jeans, shirt and waistcoat, then left his flat without coat, shoes, sunglasses or comment three hours ago. Aziraphale isn’t certain whether it makes matters better or worse that Crowley washed up against the Bentley and didn’t go any further.

He doesn’t know what’s wrong. He wants to go and gather up the Demon, pull him into his arms and the safety of his wings… But an instinct warns that Crowley needs space right now and an Angelic intervention would not be appreciated.

“Please…?” Aziraphale asks the Almighty, eyes cast upwards. “Someone must look after him? If it cannot be me - let it be someone… Please?”

* * *

It’s 4.20am or there abouts in Great Windmill Street. Stars are obscured by light pollution, making the night both more and less then it ought to be. A young lady with sapphire blue hair staggers down the road, her boots tripping precariously over one another. It’s a miracle she doesn’t end up in the gutter… She lurches to a stop - someone already is - in the gutter, that is. _Heartbreak_ , she thinks and _boyfriend_ she thinks a second later. She walks unsteadily to the hunched figure with the blood-red hair and sits next to him, fumbling a pack of cigarettes from her coat as she does so. “Got a light?”

Without acknowledging her, the man snaps his fingers and the end of her cigarette ignites.

 _Huh_ , she thinks, _it’s gonna be one of_ those _nights._ She’s a Witch but doesn’t often admit the fact in polite company - it sounds pretentious for a start and people look at you funny. Her witchery seems to come to the fore when she’s walking back from the pub: she often meets urban fae, kitsune or pooka - you’d be surprised how many there were in London - never trust a fox for a start, the little bastards… This is new though. His hair is shoulder length and falls in front of his face, but that and lowered lashes don’t entirely obscure his eyes. They’re a sour yellow like butter on the turn. He’s - he’s a - _he’s upset_ , she reminds herself. _He’s hurt,_ that’s what he is.

“Nice night?” she offers casually.

“Not really.”

“Oh come on,” she points an unsteady and alarmingly long nail at the sky. “I mean, there’s, Orion an’ an’ Venus an’ shit?"

“Orion…”

“I like Orion,” she says. “It’s constant. And beautiful."

“Beautiful?” He snaps her a startled glance before looking away again.

“Yeah - look at that - three stars inna line, but kinda crooked too? That’s fucking _art.”_ She laughs. “I like your eyes. They’re neat. Wish I had that kinda money for dressing up.” She is well aware he’s not wearing contacts but knows better than to gawp at less-than-human attributes. She offers him her cigarette.

He draws on it then looks down at it and back at her.

“Bad habit. It’ll kill me - I know..."

 _You don’t,_ he thinks and performs a little Will-working.

She shivers, goes to pull out another cigarette but stops. “I think I’ve just given up smoking?” she says with vague surprise. “So these are probably yours...” She hands the lighter and cigarettes to the thing with cat-slit eyes and boyfriend trouble. “Word of advice?” she offers.

One eyebrow quirks as he flicks away the cigarette. The last time anyone gave him advice was in 1694AD. It had not gone well.

“It’s all fine an’ dandy sulking out here, but that’s not gonna fix anything. You gotta - you gotta talk. To him. Go - go talk t’him."

“Him?” It’s almost a hiss.

Being a Witch and very drunk gives her an edge: she stares back at him. “Am I wrong?” she demands, and he looks away first. “Drama’s all well and good - I’m the queen of drama, me,” she admits. “But it doesn’t solve anything.” The sleeve of the thing’s shirt has ridden up, revealing white lines and an edge of clean gauze across the tender skin of his wrist.

“Snap!” she says, popping the ‘p’ with a snigger. “Me too…” She wrenches the sleeve of her coat up. Her wrist is made of nothing but scars upon scars upon scars. “’Nother bad habit,” she admits. “If at first you don't succeed... I’ll get it right one of these days,” she says with a crooked smile.

He gives a shudder and glowers at her. “Why - why would you…?”

“Why did you?” she cuts back.

 _“… Love,”_ he admits at last very quietly.

“That’s some real Shakespearian shit you’ve got going on there,” she teases, dark humour, because it’s got her through many a long night, so why stop now? “Ergh, is there an off-licence anywhere near here?” Reality gives a twitch - she feels it - and then the thing is handing her a bottle of Polish bison-grass vodka. She takes it. “Thanks… Gah, that’s strong,” she mutters wiping the top with her sleeve and offering it to her unlikely companion.

He takes the proffered bottle but doesn’t drink. “And you?” he nods at her wrists.

She sighs and looks at Orion’s Belt. “I don’t like me much,” she says at last. “If I can barely deal with my shit - why should I put that on anyone else? I should just… leave.”

He stares at the vodka and in the shadows of the night and behind the stray strands of his hair his expression is hard to read, but he seems confused - almost concerned. “Aren’t - aren’t you worried about damnation?”

She lets out a wild bark of laughter and takes the vodka back. “I’m not fucking Catholic!” she sniggers. “I don’t think there’s a God - and if there is, it’s not gonna be that Abrahamic morality shit show the Bible bangs on about…” She swigs from the bottle and manages to swallow rather than coughing it back into the gutter. “One day,” she says simply, “I’m gonna get it right. And I’m gonna turn back into moonbeams and starlight.” She toasts Orion with the bottle.

Her companion doesn’t seem to know what to do with that. He looks back and forth between the stars and the gutter, and the vodka, and her. “You really think it’s beautiful?” he asks at last.

She lies back on the pavement, sick of craning her neck. “Orion? Hell yeah! Look at it!” she giggles.

“Thank you,” Crowley says very softly. No one had ever told him his work was beautiful before.

She picks up the meaning behind his words because a witch knows how to listen; she rolls onto her front so she can glare at him and drink vodka without drowning. “That your work?” she asks like an inebriated student at the gala opening of an art gallery. “’S nice,” she says sincerely. “I like the - the…” She traces an unsteady line in the air depicting the asymmetry of the three stars.

Crowley bows his head. He doesn’t know what to do with praise. “Thankss,” he says awkwardly, not looking at her.

 _“Go on, go on_  
_Go bravely on_  
_Into the blackest night_  
_Hold my breath_  
_'Til your return_  
_My love will never die…”_

She looks over her shoulder. “Is - is - the car singing?” A more accurate question would be ‘I say, is that vintage Bentley playing music? Despite not having keys in its ignition?’ But that’s not what she asks because she is a Witch and all she can think is _‘She’s singing!’_

The track changes and the volume raises.

 _“I've crossed every line, broken every boundary_  
_And now it's retribution time 'cause the change that I'm into_  
_It ain't that holy!”_

The Serpent smiles and reaches out a hand to pet the car.

She snorts, amused. Of course the immaculate and ridiculous vintage car is his. Of course it plays music. On its own. Of course. What the fuck else could possibly happen?

 _“Face what I deserve, here comes judgement day!_  
_I won't run, the guilt is mine_  
_Still I'm denying all my crimes_  
_Face what I deserve, here comes judgement day!”_

 _Oh!_ She thinks suddenly. _He’s - he’s - he’s a…? Huh. Well that’s new._ She rather wishes she’d paid more attention to Dante’s Inferno. She should probably be scared - sharing vodka and cigarettes with a Demon - but she can’t detect any threat from him. And his aura - dear gods! - he’s a bigger mess than she is and that’s saying something.

She gets up and hesitantly asks, “Mind if I perch on the running board?”

The Demon stares at the car for a long moment and the tips his head to the side in what amounts to assent.

“Thanks.” She smoothes her coat and sits gingerly on the board, her boots on the kerb and her elbows across her knees so she’s not leaning against the paintwork. “Nice car,” she says.

 _“Drop of a hat she's as willing as_  
_Playful as a pussy cat_  
_Then momentarily out of action_  
_Temporarily out of gas_  
_To absolutely drive you wild…”_

She laughs. “Bitch!” she says in the tone of drunken girlfriends sharing lipstick in restrooms everywhere. She looks at the Demon. “Your car’s savage!”

He gives a little smile.

The Witch takes a swallow of vodka and offers the Demon the bottle. “What you gonna do?”

He shakes his head at the vodka. “What?”

“You can’t sit in a gutter all night…” She takes a hit of vodka and reconsiders. “I mean you can. Wouldn’t recommend it. You get kinda cold and your arse gets really numb for a start.” She nods at his bare feet. “They must be bloody ice already.” She gives him a sideways look, inebriated but pointed.

Crowley rolls his shoulders uncomfortably. He shouldn’t care - doesn’t care - doesn’t care at all - why is she still looking at him like that?

 _“Calm down my heart, don’t beat so fast,”_ sings the Bentley. _“Don’t be afraid, just once in a lifetime…"_

“Wolfsheim,” the Witch acknowledges with surprise. “Nice.”

The Demon says nothing at all.

“Look, I’m - I'm not - I’m not anyone. I’m just a drunken person at 3am. Or 4am. Or whatever sodding time it is. You - you’ve got fucking issues - and a car serenading you. Seriously. Dude!”

 _“They can keep me high_  
_'Til I tear the walls_  
_'Til I save your heart_  
_And I take your soul…”_

She pats the Bentley’s running board with a grin. “Your car’s awesome. You should listen to her more often.” She turns her head to rest her cheek against the front wheel arch. She is quite drunk and it is very late. Sleeping curled up against a vintage car is starting to seem like a good idea. She is practically in the gutter, granted, but the car and the company are classy, so there’s that.

Minutes pass. At last the Demon pokes the Witch in the ribs. The Witch makes an indifferent noise and curls tighter around the vodka bottle.

 _“Hex me, told her_  
_I dreamt of a devil that knew her,”_ sings the Bentley.  
_“Pale white skin with strawberry gashes all over, all over..._  
_Watch me fault her_  
_You're living like a disaster_  
_She said kill me faster_  
_With strawberry gashes all over, all over…”_

 _“No,”_ Crowley snaps.

She feels it although she doesn’t know exactly what just happened.

 _“You won’t get it right,”_ he says with a joyous sort of vindictiveness, snatching the vodka back. _“Not ever.”_

She is suddenly very awake. “What - what did you just do?”

“Nothing. Go home.”

“You - you…?”

 _“Go home,”_ he says in a voice that can bid stars to fall.

She does.

Crowley sits for some time in the gutter with a mostly full bottle of Polish vodka and an abandoned packet of cigarettes.

 _“And I could hear the thunder and see the lightning crack_  
_And all around the world was waking, I never could go back_  
_'Cause all the walls of dreaming, they were torn right open_  
_And finally it seemed that the spell was broken…”_ the Bentley offers quietly.

“Yeah,” Crowley says to no one in particular. He pats his fingers gently against the bonnet, then he stands, brushing himself off. He looks unsteadily at Orion’s Belt for some moments before heading back to his flat.

* * *

It’s close to 5.30am when he returns, vodka and cigarettes in hand. The Angel is there to meet him at the door, like the world’s most worried owl.

Crowley drops the vodka bottle (which, with no sense of drama, refuses to smash). He looks cold and unwell but determined.

“My - my dear…?” Aziraphale stutters.

Crowley’s lanky expanse half flings itself, half falls upon him.

The Angel catches him.

 _“I fucking love you,”_ he mumbles. “Since - sssince…”

“I know my dear.” Aziraphale strokes a hand through his hair, fingers resting on the back of his neck. “I love you too,” he whispers.

“I made Orion,” Crowley admits awkwardly.

“What beautiful craftsmanship,” the Angel says softly.

“Really? There was thiss drunk girl - ssssaid it was nice…”

“Well, she was correct.”

“Sshe wanted to be dead. Also cancer. I made it go away,” he confides. “I’m very wicked.”

“Yes my dear, I’m certain you are,” Aziraphale manages, his eyes shining.

**Author's Note:**

> \- 1933 Bentley 'cos that's the model they used for filming, I know it's a 1926 model in the book.
> 
> \- I’m so conflicted about where to put Crowley’s flat. In the book, it’s in Mayfair. In the series, the view from his window is the Houses of Parliament with Big Ben on the right - which puts him South of the river and not in Mayfair at all. And when the Bentley returns, restored, that street is in bloody Putney, which isn’t anywhere near there, ffs I cannot believe I’m stressing about this…
> 
> \- I too have met a lot of Things whilst drunk at 5am in London. London's like that. It happens.
> 
> \- The Chicken Song (stick a Renault 4 with salami in your ears) is also a thing and I 1000% blame Crowley for that horrorshow. Go on - look it up, I dare you.
> 
> \- The Bentley sings a lot of songs that aren't Queen. In my head, since the Apocalypse-That-Wasn't the Bentley's got more self aware? She's a bit like the TARDIS? And she communicates via music. IDK - I love the Bentley =)
> 
> \- Songs the Bentley sings for the witch that aren't Queen are:  
> ‘My love will never die’ - Claire Wyndham  
> ‘Judgement Day’ - Stealth  
> ‘Once in a Lifetime’ - Wolfsheim  
> ‘Seven Devils’ - Florence & the Machine  
> ‘Strawberry Gashes’ - Jack Off Jill  
> ‘Blinding’ - Florence & The Machine


End file.
